Sunday, July 5, 2015

This Independence Day weekend, our nation
pauses to remember, to celebrate, and (at least for some of us) to pray for
these United States. We do so in a
historic moment marked by both grief and hope.
Two and a half weeks ago, when nine children of God were gunned down in
a Charleston church, it pulled open racism’s wound once again in our country. We all know that; and we’ve heard voices from
all sides mostly talking to people who already share their points of view. It’s usually cast in terms of “our country
needs to” do this or do that, as if we believed that, if we only gave people
the right answer, the body politic would change.

It’s harder than that. Living into what Lincoln called “the better
angels of our nature” is excruciatingly hard work. From a Christian perspective, it’s the work
of discipleship – loving God, loving neighbor, and loving each other the way
Jesus loved. Though it’s easy for us to
say “those people” ought to change in this way or that, I believe healing our nation
begins by healing hearts. Let me tell
you about a couple of those hearts – hearts afflicted with blindness.

The first is the heart of a South Carolina
state representative, Doug Brannon. Representative
Brannon is a third-term Republican from a small South Carolina community, a
lawyer, a white man. Had he not run for
office, he’d have probably never met state Senator Clementa Pinckney, the AME
pastor and legislator who was killed in his Charleston church. But in their time in the state house, Brannon
and Pinckney had become friends.
Remembering his friend, Representative Brannon said, “When he walked into a room, the smile just lit the
room up. As big as he was, he was so inviting.
… just a welcome sight.”1

Soon after the shooting, as
the calls came to take down the Confederate flag on the capitol grounds, Representative
Brannon stopped short in the realization that he had a sin on his heart, a sin
of omission, a sin that now weighed on him like an anvil. He’d walked past that Confederate flag hundreds
of times, but as he said, “I don’t look at it.
That may sound ridiculous, but I don’t look at it. So it didn’t mean anything to me.”1
But now, he said, “It’s time to do my
job.”2 So Representative
Brannon will introduce a bill to remove that flag, though it will likely cost
him his job. He said, “The switch that
flipped was the death of my friend. I’ve
been in the House five years; I should have filed that bill five years
ago. But,” he said, “the time is now.”2 Two and a half weeks ago, Representative Brannon
didn’t even see that flag. His friend’s death opened his eyes and, for a
moment, let him step into his friend’s world.
And with fresh eyes, he could see a wound to heal.

Here’s the second example of a heart
afflicted with blindness: mine. I grew
up in Springfield, Missouri. When I was
a boy, Springfield was 98 percent white.3 At my school, there was no racial
diversity. Literally, I didn’t know an
African American kid, or any other kid who wasn’t white. The one black person I knew – as trite as it
sounds, it’s true – the one black person I knew was the woman who cleaned our
house.

Most of Springfield’s small black
population lived in the north-central part of town. My friends and I played in a basketball league
at the Boy’s Club there; and one day, we were in the game room, playing
pool. Three black kids came up to join
us. My friends and I had had so little
interaction with black kids that we couldn’t understand the words they spoke. We literally didn’t speak the same
language.

In an earlier day, Springfield’s
population was about 10 percent African American. Black people owned thriving businesses,
served on the City Council, served on the school board, served in law
enforcement. But in 1906, on Holy
Saturday, as Jesus lay in the tomb, three young black men were lynched and
burned on the downtown square. Understandably,
many black people left Springfield for good the next morning, after Easter
services. The governor declared martial
law and sent in the state militia. But no
one was ever convicted for the lynchings.
Eventually, the city’s black population shrank to less than half of what
it had been.4

I knew about that lynching because my
parents had told me, several times. But I never heard about it in school. In 12 years of public education in
Springfield, we never talked about that lynching or any of the rest of the city’s
black experience. It’s not that
Springfield’s racial history was denied.
It just wasn’t.

We are formed by the reality we inhabit,
as I said last week. And, growing up, the
reality I inhabited was that African American people were “other.” I knew they were there, but I didn’t know them. I didn’t even see them. And when we don’t see, we don’t change.

Of course, over the years, I’ve had the
chance to see and hear a bit more. I’ve learned
from black conversation partners in college, at work, and in this congregation. And then, this year, a relationship has been
growing with a man some of you were blessed to meet in May – Pastor Mike Patton
at United Missionary Baptist Church. He’d
contacted me about being part of an ecumenical Good Friday service. I couldn’t do it because of our services here,
but Pastor Mike and I kept talking. And we
decided we’d have a joint service – gathering at their church, with our choir singing,
and with me preaching.

It was a great experience; and afterward,
we knew we needed to get together again.
But sadly, the next opportunity was an interfaith service the day after
the Charleston shootings. Pastor Mike,
Mtr. Anne, Fr. Marcus, John Walker, Jim Bridgeford, and I – we all went to that
service together, praying for healing in Charleston and for our nation.

After the service, the six of us went to
lunch at M&M Deli at 31st and Woodland. In many ways, that meal was a foretaste of
the banquet of the kingdom of heaven. It
was Eucharist with Ruebens and potato chips and Diet Coke. We even started the feast by sharing a
single, perfect doughnut, broken and given among us as we waited in line for
our sandwiches. The Body of Christ was truly
present around the table as the six of us unwrapped our sandwiches and opened
our hearts. And the Body of Christ was
present all around that room, too: black people, brown people, white people; folks
from the neighborhood, workers on lunch breaks, cops on the beat. Those diverse hearts and hands were united in
the fellowship of our common humanity.
There was plenty for all, and all the hungry were fed.

There in the church of M&M Deli, the
six of us talked about what was next for our two congregations. The worship we shared in May at United
Missionary Baptist had been amazing, people from both congregations describing
a sense of welcome and an ease of relationship they might not have
expected. As a next step, we talked
about a couple of options. Now, their congregation
is small, 50 or 60 people on a Sunday.
And I didn’t want to presume that we’d trump their service by having all
of us gather here on a Sunday morning.
So I suggested they come to the Feast of the First Tomato, which is this
Wednesday – beautiful music and a great party afterward.

Well, Pastor Mike put down his sandwich
and said, “There’s nothing wrong with that.
But you know, for us, it would be important to sit down at the table
with your family for Sunday dinner.” I
heard him. What I had feared would seem
dismissive – “You all shut down your little church one Sunday and come to our
big, pretty church” – what I had feared would seem dismissive was gracious
hospitality instead. Who knew?

So on Sunday, Aug. 9, at our 10:15
service, we will welcome the people of United Missionary Baptist to gather with
our family for Sunday dinner, here at Jesus Christ’s table. When we went there in May, our choir provided
the music and I preached. When they come
here in August, their praise band will provide the music, and Pastor Mike will
preach. And the kingdom of God will be revealed
among us.

All this may seem an odd topic for a
Fourth of July sermon. But I heard
something in the Old Testament reading this morning, a key to unlock the
shackles of racism that bind us and keep us from true equality and
freedom. Here’s what I heard: “The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of
lords, the great God, mighty and awesome … who loves the strangers. … You shall also love the stranger, for you
were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19) And then, in the Gospel reading today, I
heard Jesus say this: “Love your enemies. …
If you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing
than others? Do not even the Gentiles do
the same?” (Matthew 5:44,47)

We will never grow into the full stature
of the Body of Christ, and we will never grow into the fullness of blessing God
intends America to be, if we do not love the stranger. For when we love the stranger – around a deli
table east of Troost and around the welcome table of Jesus Christ – when we
love the stranger, we come to see that we need not be strangers. We come to
see, as Jesus wished, that we are one, as he and the Father are one (John
17:22-23).

All this may sound like pie-in-the-sky
preaching from an out-of-touch priest.
Maybe. But I’ll let the pragmatic
politician in me tell you this: The only
way to dismantle the systemic racism that clings like slime to our national
body politic is to change one heart at a time.
Those of us who never heard a black voice in school, those of us who don’t
notice the Confederate flag – we will not change just because we’re told to, no
matter how compelling the case. But I
have faith in the God who changes hearts every day. I have faith that when we come to see the
stranger, when we hear the stranger’s story, and when we share our story, too,
then “we will all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1
Corinthians 15:51-52). We will be
transformed, made new by the Holy Spirit who longs for the Body of Christ, and
the body of our nation, out of many to be one.